


Desert Rain

by russian_blue



Category: Elfquest
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-21
Updated: 2010-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-13 22:53:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/russian_blue/pseuds/russian_blue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Wolfriders have gone to find Cutter, what of those who stay behind?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Desert Rain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RunLikeRain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RunLikeRain/gifts).



The howls are lonely at first. Five voices, raised in song: the high, keening sound obscures the differences of age and sex, making them all sound alike. But nothing can hide the loss of numbers, five voices where there used to be more than a hand of hands.

Drought, when she is used to rain. The Wolfriders were never a large tribe, but they were always a pack, fractious and indivisible. Humans could hunt them, Madcoil could kill them, but nothing broke the pack . . . until now. Cutter's quest, Savah's illness, Suntop's pursuit of his father, with most of the Wolfriders following along.

Most. But not all.

The Sun Folk don't see it. She can tell by the way they smile at her, walking along the paths of their village; by the way they share their routine problems and everyday joys. They fear the loss of the Wolfriders, and doubt the ability of young Dart to make up the difference -- but when they speak of recent changes to her, it's always about Leetah, and the hope of her little son to someday take the healer's place.

Five voices, howling amid the desert rocks -- but they forget that four of those voices belong to Rainsong and her family. That they are Wolfriders, too.

"They don't mean to be cruel," Woodlock says, every time he notices her sadness, and every time Rainsong thinks, _they aren't cruel. They just don't understand._ How could they? The villagers have never been part of a pack, and have never known what it is to discover one night that although you may have almost become Sun Folk yourself, you are still Wolfrider enough to be lonely.

At night they howl, and in the morning they sleep late, and then they rise and go about their Sun Folk lives, with hats to keep their pale skin from burning. She tries to put a hat on Dart, as if he's one of her own cubs, but he knocks it away with a scowl almost worthy of his father. Rainsong hides a smile and lets it go. Dart isn't a cub anymore, and if he wants to lead these Sun Folk hunters, he can't have a mother wolf licking his fur to make it lie flat.

She lays a hand on her slowly rounding belly and wonders if her new cub will let her protect him from the sun.

Here in the desert, they measure their lives by that light. Rainsong is startled, the first time she realizes she doesn't know how much of their faces the Mother Moon and Child Moon will be showing that night. It used to be something she knew without thinking, as she knows where her own hands are.

But the bean plants will be ready for harvest soon, their fat pods full to bursting on the vine, and she knows that instead.

Newstar is growing like a bean plant herself, shooting up into gawkiness that has not yet become willowy grace instead. In the heat of the day she lies down on the cool tile floor, and Rainsong brushes her hair long past need, humming old Wolfrider lullabies. Lately Newstar has begun to keep out of the sun again, when before she did not care, and Rainsong suspects that has something to do with Halek's poem. The Sun Folk boy whispered it under their window not long ago, a song of praise to the bright star who guides him through the night. Wing threw an empty gourd at him -- more, Wing said, to make the noise stop than anything else -- but Newstar blushed and giggled, and now she's doing her best to be mysterious, aloof, and pale like the moons, all of which featured heavily in Halek's poem. Rainsong smiles, and brushes her daughter's hair until it shines.

The heat strengthens, but the days grow shorter, bending toward autumn.

Wing follows Dart everywhere, a golden-headed shadow. He's too young to remember humans, to fear any break in the peace of the Sun Village, and in truth Rainsong suspects he is too gentle for Dart's path. But he "helps" Woodlock teach the new hunters how to track, and scoffs at them for not being able to smell where their prey has gone, until his father scruffles his hair in admonition, and Rainsong's heart aches with a peculiar, nameless blend of pride and sorrow and love. Part Wolfrider, part Sun Folk, and part of something new.

As the days begin to cool and the harvest draws near, she lies out on the dry slopes with her hands on her round stomach and her head pillowed against Silvergrace's side, watching the moons glide across the sky.

A dry, dry land, hot and bright and unlike everything she ever knew. But there is peace here, planting and growing and reaping instead of hiding and fighting and fearing, and she wonders whether Skywise's lodestone was the only thing that led them here, or if her heart called out for a new home to love.

Autumn at last, nights with an edge like bright metal, and the harvest filling the subterranean storerooms of the village. In a distant land, as alien to Rainsong as the desert once was, the Wolfriders fight against trolls, regaining the home her ancestors lost so many ages ago. A High One stands before them, weaving a history forgotten to all, and deep in Rainsong's body, the familiar pains begin.

Cradled in Woodlock's arms, she sweats and gasps through her trials, soothed along by Shenshen's practiced reassurances. Newstar and Wing watch in fascination, whispering between themselves. It may not be Sun Folk tradition to have others there, be they lifemates or children, but Woodlock didn't have to threaten Shenshen to get in; Rainsong simply asked, and the healer's sister said yes. Her family gives her strength.

A family that grows by one more tonight. Drops of sweat fall to the earth, rain upon the desert soil. A fresh cry pierces the air. Rainsong collapses back into Woodlock's embrace, listening to her children cheer, and then laughs as sound rises up outside. Voices howling, and not just Dart's alone: awkward, unpracticed, but heartfelt, as the Sun Folk hunters -- Wolfriders in training -- welcome the newest member of the pack.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for this prompt. I admit, I'd never given much thought to Woodlock and Rainsong before I sat down to write your story; my favorites have always been Clearbrook (among the women) and Strongbow (among the men). But thinking about your request got me wondering what it was like being Wolfriders in the Sun Village, and that gave me a whole new sympathy for and interest in these two.
> 
> I'm very grateful to the Pinis for putting the full run of _Elfquest_ comics [up online](http://www.elfquest.com/gallery/OnlineComics3.html), which made researching while away from my own bookshelves a heck of a lot easier.
> 
> Also, I should thank my betas (especially the one who caught a very dumb error for me), but that can wait until after the author reveal.


End file.
